Nobody Told Me the Road Would Be Easy

How does an inner-city high school, located in an area beset with gangs, guns and drugs, go from sending less than 10% of its students to college to sending more than 70% in just six years? This is the true and inspirational story of how that happened.

Emmy-award winning producers Carol Marin and Don Moseley took an entire year in order to tell how Dr. Katherine Flanagan, principal at the Manley Career Academy High School in Chicago, opened the doors of her school to a native New Yorker named Lila Leff, who, against the toughest of odds, together started the Umoja Student Development Corporation, to provide academic activities for students before, during and after school, as well as college and career development, to help alter the course of the lives of a majority of students who attended Manley.

Hosted and reported by Ms. Marin, a member of the Chicago Journalism Hall of Fame, here we see the story of struggle and success, not only through the eyes of students, but also through the lives of Dr. Flanagan and Ms. Leff, who each had to overcome personal battles to get to where they are today.